A lot. Younger = lower paid, and less time to have accumulated anything including body fat.

I think the discrepancies with this stand out more to me because I look for people who are similarly aged/in similar circumstances. Uncephalized is close to my age, but making a fair amount more. I'm a college grad, but not using my degree. I wonder if that affects income too. My first job after graduating was within 3 months (had worked part-time in school at $11/hr) and paid $27k/yr. Both my parents graduated with bachelors degrees (English and Engineering). Both my boyfriend's parents went to school, but his dad never finished (just a couple credits away from graduating, but something happened and he started working instead).

I'm also in this for mental health, and never really *needed* to lose weight (135lbs at 5'6" is not really unhealthy, but I felt awful). I lost about 15 lbs though. I have definitely read about people close to my age who come on here looking to lose body fat, and more than a little.

I read this interesting blog post describing the class distinctions in the United States.

Interesting article. I don't agree with it, but it was an interesting read.

My disagreement comes not from the ladders the author describes, but from the assumption that each ladder is homogenous in viewpoint...and to an extent by the characterizations of those views. I am (by the author's standards) continuing at least 5 generations of "gentry" family tradition, yet the author passes me over to give the title "people who are effectively thugs" to members of the "elite" ladder. That seems wrong on several levels.

I think the discrepancies with this stand out more to me because I look for people who are similarly aged/in similar circumstances.

Absolutely...you look for common ground, or at least I do, and at a superficial level there is probably not much common ground between you and a 50yo worried more about the extra 50lbs she is carrying than spending more of her family's $100+K/yr income on groceries. I've honestly never figured out how deep that gap really is...maybe we're all more similar than we seem....

If I had to start feeding my family on minimal wage tomorrow, I would just go rice, beans, potatoes and the cheapest bulk cuts of meat like roasts and tubs of reg ground beef, plus whatever veggies and fruit are on sale/dirt cheap. It is different in the States probably, but here junk food is actually more expensive than this sort of fresh fare that requires (gasp) cooking. Dairy is insanely expensive so I would just cook in whatever fat comes with the cheap meat.... Primal might be for more well to do folks, but whole foods are pretty much for everyone who is not lazy to cook.

Obama is G1 and I'm G3. So only 2 apart. Most of the people here claiming to be poor are G4 (some college), L3 and L4 (blue collar workers). I don't think very many here are part of the permanent underclass. This caste system has little to do with race, only a little to do with birth/family, and has more mobility than a caste system like India's.

at a quick glance i appear to be a G3 too...but it's a little confusing. financially i feel like i'm more in the lifestyle description of L3, and definitely come from an L4 family (though, my parents have climbed to L3 over the years), i just happen to do well in school while doing more labor-type work...but i'm the anomaly in my family.
this is me cherry picking parts of this thing. i can't wait to read the rest.

I read this interesting blog post describing the class distinctions in the United States. Lots of people here will claim to belong to a class they're not really in because in actuality, the amount of money you have is not the deciding factor for what class/how much social mobility/access to power you have. In other words, the poll listing income as a way to determine whether we are "rich and white" isn't the best way to determine if we all belong to the same or to different classes. According to this article, I'm in the same social ladder as President Obama (a member of the Gentry). He's just a bit further up the ladder than me. I'm not in the same social ladder as either of the George Bushes (Elite) and never will be.The 3-ladder system of social class in the U.S. « Michael O.Church

I'm going to have to read through the later parts of that article later, but it's an interesting analysis of social class that seems far better suited to analysing the differences between groups than simply looking at income scale. In those categories, I'd be a G2 now. I think it's a particularly useful tool in looking at cultures such as the one in my province, where many skilled tradespeople make incomes well into the six figure range whereas people in my social circle are often in the $50-100k range (faculty members, consultants, lawyers, researchers, writers, etc.) despite often having 6-10 years of post-secondary education.

So do you theorize that paleo/primal is more common in one of those ladders than in others?

“If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.” --Audre Lorde

Go Slavs! Baltic-Slavic = awesome. I only have about 1/8th in me, but it seems to be the strongest part of my gene-pool. Huge bone structure, "Russian" face, hourglass shape, appetite for fats, mead and fermented foods...
Also, every Slav (or part Slav) I've known has NEVER broken a bone. So, to further this myth I'm creating that our skeletons are indestructible: have you ever broken a bone?

Student here, so living off of line of credit. Spend about 40K annually on everything including tuition, so I'll put that as my "income" - which is what I will have in spending money for the next few years as I pay off my debt, anyway. I'm white, but I was not born or raised here in North America.

I'm going to have to read through the later parts of that article later, but it's an interesting analysis of social class that seems far better suited to analysing the differences between groups than simply looking at income scale. In those categories, I'd be a G2 now. I think it's a particularly useful tool in looking at cultures such as the one in my province, where many skilled tradespeople make incomes well into the six figure range whereas people in my social circle are often in the $50-100k range (faculty members, consultants, lawyers, researchers, writers, etc.) despite often having 6-10 years of post-secondary education.

So do you theorize that paleo/primal is more common in one of those ladders than in others?

Yeah, I found it a fascinating and pretty accurate way to describe our social stratification. You can ignore any value judgments on any of the layers if you find that sort of thing off-putting and it still makes sense.

I'd say that paleo/primal is more common for people in the Gentry ladder as they will read sciency stuff and identify with Mark living in the 'bu or Robb Wolf or Loren Cordain or Dr. Mike Eades or any of the others. But a lot of people in the L ladder will be living paleo more paleo than many of us in the G ladder by virtue of the annual hunting seasons. We'd have a lot to learn from each other if we were capable of getting beyond our other differences.

In my own family, my father's side was very Gentry. My grandfather was a university professor and my 2 uncles have multiple PhDs. My father never completed college. On my mother's side my grandfather was an administrator in the boy scouts and my grandmother was a nurse. Educated both of them, but my mother never completed college. I'm the only one in my immediate family to do so.

White and have a good income. Probably a comfy version of middle class, not rich.

Could I do primal on the cheap if I had to? I think I could keep up the macros in terms of carbs and protein and fat. But I would have to choose CAFO beef and chicken, low-grade eggs, conventional pre-cut frozen vegetables, easy cheap fruit like apples or bananas, cheap big boxes of green tea, and only a little dairy.

With a little more funding I would upgrade to
butter/coconut oil
mid-grade eggs
Trader Joe grass fed beef
grass-fed cream
more naturalish chicken
more organic veggies
berries
In that order.

You can eat primal for the same price as people who eat out of the 7-11.

$4 for a small bag of chips, a small bag of M&M's and 20oz of Diet Coke is ridiculous. For that amount of money, I could make a lunch consisting of 1/4 lb fatty ground beef + chunky tomato sauce+ 1.5 cup froz veg + 1 small serving nuts + cheap coffee with a little milk and 1 sugar packet. For an extra 2.50 -- now I'm up to the price of a $6.50 "value meal" at McD's -- I could make that lunch, PLUS a smoothie with 1/2 cup berries, 1/2 banana, and a scoop of whey powder and probably a green tea packet. That's, I think, 700 calories.

But that's if you can get to a store which has all this stuff, and you do have to cook it yourself. Sadly, many inner cities don't stock real food.

MY PRIMAL: I (try to) follow by-the-book primal as advocated by Mark Sisson, except for whey powder and a bit of cream. I advocate a two-month strict adjustment for newbies. But everybody is different and other need to tweak Primal to their own needs.

White, 45, just over 40K, my husband's work is sporadic, so I'm not sure, maybe around 10K? But he's also building an apartment over our garage so that will eventually be a source of income. We're in a rare group who own our vehicles and house outright and have no children, so very little in bills, thus more to spend on pricier foods. We rarely go out to eat, never go to movies, get most books from the library, shop at thrift stores, etc. so get by rather comfortably. I buy stuff when I want it (I'm not one to buy frivolous crap) and still put about $700 per month into savings.